I’ve been modestly obsessed with Darren Aronofsky’s AI-filled video project On This Day…1776 since it suddenly appeared on YouTube in late January.
Narratively, the ongoing series of short videos tracks selected events throughout the years of America’s birth, when the consequences of the impending revolution were truly dangerous. As a Hollywood-adjacent initiative, it also aims to be a venue for creative professionals to demonstrate what can be achieved with exponentially evolving generative AI tools.
What emerged through the first half of 2026, especially as the country’s 250th anniversary on July 4 approached, was an increasingly surreal amalgamation of technological ambition, snapshot patriotism, and a penchant for the grotesque.
I’m convinced it’s the worst thing ever to happen to that TV show, but I can’t stop watching it because I hate it and want to see what weird twists happen next. And some of them are really ridiculous.
Produced by Aronofsky’s AI-centric Primordial Soup studio and promoted by Time Studios, On This Day…1776 received media attention and backlash when its first two episodes were released simultaneously. People hated it just because it had a lot of AI-generated elements. The execution flaws were all too obvious. It was a betrayal of the humanity of Aronofsky’s own film. While I tried to be open-minded, I couldn’t help but summarize As “mechanically driven hell soup” AI slop And man’s wrong choices. ”
For a while, the project seemed to be shelved because the criticism was too much to bear. Time Studios had promised weekly episodes, but nearly a month passed before the third episode dropped. (There was no splash; it just appeared on the YouTube page, like all subsequent episodes.)
This day…1776 brought many encounters with the famous General George Washington. His dream sequence is not among them.
It seemed to disappear from everyone’s radar. The first episode received 199,000 views. It hasn’t caused a viral sensation, but it’s not entirely absent. The four episodes, which span from mid-May to mid-June, each have less than 2,000 views as of this writing.
Every episode since its inception (11 so far, most under 5 minutes), and only a handful of them have been watched by me.
Like I said, I’m hooked. My compulsive viewing centers around three things. Whether or not the series can meet its weekly schedule (a fiasco), how it represents history (it’s quirky and getting weirder), and what its AI looks like (often impressive, often questionable).
In May, Aronofsky spoke about the 1776 project at the Cannes Film Festival’s AI Summit: “This is an experiment to see how it progresses, so I encourage you to watch it.”
challenge accepted.
However, before I get into these details, regardless of my judgment of this series, this Referendum on AI video as cinema or its general place in art. Like it or not, generative AI is becoming an integral part of filmmaking. storyboard Providing settings and scenery around human actors, creating authentic features movie.
I’m here to see if On This Day…1776 succeeds or fails in its own right. This series is well deserved and I’m here to review it just like any other show. Widows Bay. What story does it tell? And are you telling that story well?
The encounter between AI and the theory of great historical figures
This day…1776 is not a high school American history class. It’s not textbook, even if there are a few dull and dull moments.
The film – as promised – takes place chronologically in 1776, and while it features some of the biggest hits, such as the fledgling Continental Army scaring the British fleet out of Boston Harbor, it often digs into deeper cuts without specific dates attached, such as the forced conscription of German villagers into the Hessian army. However, it is a little different from a calendar. The March 5th Massacre Day episode focuses on the Boston Massacre, even though it happened six years ago. (Although this date wasn’t released on YouTube until March 17th, it was actually an important day in 1776, as it commemorated the departure of the fleet.)
Talk about jump cuts. Next thing you know, you’re in a palatial drawing room with 18th-century French government ministers and their tables and chairs. Next, they are at sea surrounded by fishermen and prey.
This series incorporates a global perspective. We see the developments of that year from different angles: American revolutionaries, British soldiers, French royalty, Hessian mercenaries. Extended sequences are spoken in French and German, either with subtitles or in a peppery Scottish accent. (This production emphasizes that SAG-certified human voice actors provide the dialogue. Other parties involved include the writer, director, editor, and composer, all of whom are credited at the end of each episode starting with the fourth episode.)
The ensemble cast features a parade of historical greats, including Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, George III, and John Adams. If there is a hero, it is certainly George Washington, the towering figure in 1776. A rare exception is a strange two-part story about an unlucky, unknown German man who is conscripted into the ranks of the Hessian army shortly after his marriage.
We spent some time with Betsy Ross in the Flag Day episode (which aired a few days late) and she doesn’t have any lines. She is too busy sewing.
Aronofsky says ‘amazing’ improvement
In comments at Cannes in May, Aronofsky called the progress of production from January to the April 29th episode (the sixth episode, currently the most recent) “astounding.” Not only has the AI model improved, he said, but so has the Primordial Soup pipeline and the unspecified artists working on the project.
I’m not convinced. As the production team becomes more familiar with the tools, it will probably be about the backend. But on the business side, where am I looking? Sorry, no.
Faces are inconsistent between scenes and between frames within the same scene. Ben Franklin looks a little doughy, and then not so much. A little older, then a little younger. The lip sync is also almost always crazily off, like in a poorly dubbed foreign film. Historical figures still feel like props. When Washington strides into the room, it feels staged and less than alive. And often there is a plastic-like quality to the images.
Frustrated and nervous, John Adams takes out his anger on a bowl of water. The historical record does not mention his feelings about the use of generative AI tools in the creative process.
There’s always a sense that Primordial Soup is showing off. Look at the macro details of this fabric. Watch them blow picture-perfect bubbles. Technically great, but distracting. Time Studios referred to On This Day…1776 as an “animated series,” which feels like an odd term given their constant pursuit of photorealism.
But somehow the more recent episodes feel like they’ve improved in ways that are hard to pinpoint.
Episode 10 of Betsy Ross features a moving montage of red, white, and blue flag threads forming and reshaping Uncle Sam, Amelia Earhart and her plane, the moon landing, the flag-raising on Iwo Jima, a confronting elephant and donkey, Jimi Hendrix, and Arlington Cemetery. It looks like something you’d see on a jumbotron at a political rally. This is one of the most memorable sequences in the series so far.
I think it’s about confidence. The Primordial Soup team seems to be feeling increasingly empowered to get weird. To channel their inner David Lynch. To move beyond the history of the diorama and towards a particular vision, even if it drives me crazy.
One of the early episodes involves George Washington having a bad dream, reenacting the anxieties he actually recorded in his personal letters. We could see his dentures all too clearly when he was getting ready for bed. In an extended dream sequence, a musket ball hits him in the forehead and lingers for a moment before falling.
A callback to the Boston Massacre? It’s done in vertical video format, as if someone recorded the episode on a smartphone. That’s not the only anachronism. In later episodes, we see glimpses of the “Join or Die!” element. The statue was spray painted, and another had the call “No more kings” painted on it.
Trippy and getting more trippy
The April 29th episode was trippy from start to finish. The film, which depicts a debate within the French establishment over whether to aid American colonists, begins with a tracking shot of a housefly flitting through a palace room, and ends with a horrifyingly comical scene where it is smacked onto a map. In another scene, a fish flops across a table right in front of the dismayed royal family. The distraught ministers are having a discussion in a palace room when they suddenly find themselves on a boat on a raging sea, equipped with a table and chairs. (The episode ends with a guillotine decapitation. Hey hey!)
The June 5th episode will see a stressed-out John Adams becoming dangerously close to becoming a clone of Larry from The Three Stooges.
The cartoon battle between Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, and King George III of England has been a tense one for some time. When Jefferson and his proclamation ultimately win, the crowd chants “USA! USA! USA!”
But nothing prepared me for the latest episode, which dropped on June 30th as I was finishing this review. No kidding, it’s done entirely in 21st century anime style, complete with a flashy WWE-style showdown between Thomas Jefferson and King George III, as Jefferson grapples with the soul-stirring phrases that make the Declaration of Independence the definitive document of the American experiment. Your high school history teacher probably never combined “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” with something like:
George III: “Kneel before the King!”
Jefferson: “Kneel before me, bitch.”
In this episode, as well as in real-life events in history, Jefferson gets the last word and W.
On This Day…1776 is more a work of historical fiction than a history lesson, staying mostly faithful to real-life people and events, but never shying away from changing directions for the story it wants to tell. This is a costume drama where it’s still comfortable to wear trousers, buckle shoes, and a three-cornered hat, and a period piece that’s trying to prove its relevance in modern times.
Aronofsky described On This Day…1776 as an “experiment” using generative AI models and tools whose “potential as a storytelling tool became undeniable.”
Unfortunately, there are many unanswered questions about how much of what we see is the raw product of the AI tools themselves (how elaborate the prompts must be!) and how much is the work of the human artists and engineers using the AI tools. Is the episode directed by the author or by the audience? What happens in the post-production process? Where is the line between human creativity and AI automation? Will it be more than glorified slop?
On this day… 1776 stumbles and stumbles many times. And while it may never win against the large “AI is not art” camp, its good moments aren’t half bad.
Not all experiments are successful. But maybe, hopefully, you’ll learn something along the way.
